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I remember when I bought my Savage Species, there was a curious magic item. The naga's arms were two artificial arms what could be used by nagas and other species. I always missed nagas' arms because in my own imagination always they have arms and hands with opposible dumbs.

Do you think with the magitek in Starfinder nagas could enjoy two arms? Maybe by living tissues created by biohackers. And wouldn't be too expensive? And how should be a monster template for a criature with added arms?

And a cyborg/android/Sentient Robot with four arms? two to use a heayy weapon, one to use a light weapon and the fourth a shield.


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Do you remember that Star Trek episode about a parallel universe?

I have thought about the idea of a uchrony where Aztlanti empire is a conferation who defends the freedom, the respect for the naive ecosystems and the rights of the sentient creatures.

I suggest a soft way to allow "uchronies" if anybody doesn't want a multiverse in the franchise:

Akashic demiplane: The History is "recorded" as a timeline but some groups with a "time-travel" technology can visit, explore and even alter or create a new timeline. This wouldn't create time-travel paradoxes really because it isn't a true travel to the past but to a copy (sometimes a false or wrong copy) of the past. Sometimes whe a akashic demiplane is altered too much by the time-travelers, it isn't erasured really, but "sent" to the dream plane. Then a lot of different things can happen, for example lord fey and lovecratians aberrations from the kingdom of the nightmare trying to invade these "reality bubbles".

Or the akashic demiplane is like a "backup" of the space-time to avoid time-travel paradoxes. This would avoid the true past was altered, but maybe some little details, but also allowing to create a uchrony demiplane, for example where an alien civilitation survived an apocalyptic crisis, or this hasn't started yet.


https://cosmicbook.news/att-closing-dc-comics-5g-ethan-van-sciver

AT&T CLOSING DC COMICS IF '5G' FAILS SAYS ETHAN VAN SCIVER

https://ourcommunitynow.com/entertainment/marvel-rumored-to-take-over-dc-co mics

Marvel Rumored to Take Over DC Comics

https://www.tvovermind.com/theres-a-rumor-that-marvel-is-taking-over-dc-com ics/

There’s a Rumor that Marvel is Taking Over DC Comics

https://cosmicbook.news/marvel-taking-over-dc-comics

MARVEL RUMORED TO TAKE OVER DC COMICS

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Of course I doubt AT&T to sell Superman & cia when they are a very brand, even one of the main icones of the American culture. But something is happening. We, the Spanish people loves sayings and one is "to troubled river, fisherman's profit". This could be a great opportunity for Marvel/Disney, not to get the rights, but at least some licence agremeent, something like Hasbro with Disney, or IDW comics with Hasbro. Marvel could be allowed to publish their own version of DC superheroes or even theses as "guest artists" in the cinematic marvel universe.


This tuesday I bought "Pact Worlds" sourcebook, and among the five new PC races the bantrid was there. They are like a big nose over a ball.

High speed movement, but they can't wear clothing or armour for bipedal humanoids, superior limbs aren't like ordinary arms & hands.

It is very original and exotic, but I am afraid it is not enough practical as PC. It runs too fast, but we can do that with a stepway.

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And how would be to use a (cyborg) bantrid like a (biomechanical) monster mount?

Other idea is a biohacker using a khizard (sentient plant) scion/graft/biopunk implant, working like a plant simbiont. It would work like a player with two PCs, but the distribution of XPs would be like an extra PC and then the power balance shouldn't be broken.


Some horror genres RPGs use systems to record the psychological damage by mental stress, for example the pool of sanity points from "Call of Chulth" but my opinion is the system for madness from "Unknown Armies" is closer to reality.

My idea is madness has got five pillars: violence, reality, helpeness, isolation and remorse. These pillars use a scale 1-20 like the abilities scores. Ordinary people have got 10. A low level is bad, and higher level isn't so bad but neither very good. A higher level means the character is hardened, for example a war veteran used to violence.

A low level of the pillars causes penalty like the abilities scores (-2 by Str 7, for example), and a high value gives a bonus check for some things, but also a penalty for others. For example somebody used to loneliness can suffer penalties for social interactions.

The pillars are:

Violence. Usually warriors and soldiers are hardened, but a high level means losing empathy, like indifference when you read fiction where lots of characters die. A cold heart is closed to the joy and happiness. He could lose advantages caused by inspiration or resolution. Love can causes pain, but we also need something to love, a reason for the sacrifice.

Reality. In a fantasy world with dragons, pokemons-like creatures, undeads and spellcasters this can sound strange, but sometimes we need enough good sense to notice when somebody could be a trick, a magic illusion or an hallucination caused by some poison. "Keep your open mind, but not so open your brain falls out".

Helpeness. The pride precedes the fall, but the other extreme also is bad. Destructive or pathological self-criticism may be so dangerous like blind proud and prepotency. We need to find the right balance between self-criticism and self-esteem/faith in oneself. Both are necessary but too much also can hurt you. Sometimes we need hope or faith to get enough courage to face the challenges. Breaking our dreams may be hard, but also we need what thrills us to live.

Isolation. This is not about living alone as an hermit, but social contacts. Somebody could be a rich merchant, talking for all day about trading and business but he is emotionally alone, he trust nobody, without friends nor love by a family. We need human contact to improve our social skills.

Remorse. We face the consequences caused by our own actions, and sometimes we feel guilty for our mistakes. If you can't feel remorse for the damage cause to other people then you may be a psychopath, or like a zealot, a bad guy trying to do the right by the wrong ways.

In the TTRPG Unknown Armies PCs becoming hardened helps for saving of checks for mental stress, but too high levels isn't very advisable.


Sometimes in the past I have thought about adaptations from some TTRPGs to d20 system and I have noticed an obstacle could be the different list of attributes or abilities scores.

After several turn of the head, thinking about that, I decided to add two new abilities scores, and maybe a third.

Acuity as the sum of Astuteness and Perception, a good eye to find and interpret possible clues, but also a fast mind to improvise a lie or a excuse, or social manipulation.

And Spirit as union of different traits. Karma/divine grace/luck/fate/guardian angel, but also hope, faith in the future, and courage. Wisdom would be for Sanity checks, concentration, self-control checks about passions not linked with the fear, and emotional intelligence, psychological maturity, knowing himself and understanding the others' points of view.

Dexterity wouldn't change, but I add a couple of sub-attribute what would work as bonus feats: agility (for actions what need good speed, equilibrium or rhythm) and technique (precision, or pre-learnt actions, for example for playing music, dance, martial arts maneuvers, handcrafting, marksmanship, artistic talent, disarming traps).

Appearance could be work as sub-attribute, a bonus for social encounters, practically a bonus feat.

I guess I would rather to add more abilities scores to feel PCs characters by me are different, so that an elf with +2 Agility (racial bonus) isn't like a gnome or a goblin with +2 Technique and then the class building would a different strategy.


I guess fans of sci-fi know the concept of transhumanism, but I am not here to talk about this as philosophy, but more about "transhumanist technology", this is about mind-transfer, the digital immortality (have you seen the teleserie "Altered Carbone", or the comic "Rogue Trooper"?) and transgenic engineering. Maybe somebody knows the RPG Eclipse Phase by Posthuman Studios.

In a space-fantasy the medicine should be so advanced not only ectogenesis (this is other matter) is possible, but also the secret of eternal youth, by means of the regeneration of the telomeres in the extremes of DNA chains.

If in Starfinder the canon allows the gender bender... why not to change to another race who lives are longer? If you are an human, wouldn't you like to be an elf? In D&D 3rd Ed Savage Species there was a way to change the race, and the example was an ogre who became an elf. Somebody even would want to use transgenic technology to become a dragon.

Other matter is about the metagame effects of allowing the mind-transfer technology. Why not if druid 4th level spell reincarnate is possible?

Would you allow this in your games, totally banned, open doors or any limits?


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I was thinking about how would be a new spin-off after Starfinder and my opinion is a new title had to be about gothic horror and urban fantasy, but we should add some pulp-noirpunk touch. I also thought about other names Pulpfinder, Wyrdfinder or Grimmfinder.

The setting would be in Goraltha but in a demiplane like a Tyson sphere, with a level of technology of XX century, but industrial revolution wasn't possible without magic. In some zones the digital age tried to start, but machines without special magic defenses are infected, and controlled, by hostile supernatural forces. There aren't enough mining resources to manufacturare large-scale vehicles or motors but there is a great industry of energy from renewable sources and waste recycling. Nuclear energy is possible but forbidden by divine powers. Once a nuclear bomb was tried for a war, but in the last second a god used teletransportation to send to a zone of the attacker faction.

Zombie virus was used as biological weapon, but these were eaten by werebeasts, using a transgenic therianthropy as other biological weapon, or destroyed by half-construct soldiers...(later sentient machines started a rebellion in some zones) Transgenic engineering has created a new race of mutants (almost bulletproof) shapeshifters with regenerative troll traits, the fomorkin. Most of firearms are one-shot. Supernaturals forces don't allow machine guns without special (and more expensive) magic defenses. In cities who kills with an authoritative firearm is marked with a supernatural curse. Using machine guns in the battlefield is punished by divine powers opening a planar to the Valhalla and lots of bulletproof petitioner fighters appear. Almost all allowed ammo can't cause a serious lethal damage. Criminals would rather blades and hand-crossbows what reload themself by an artificial muscle of biopunk organic technology)

Aeroplanes are possible but travel companies would rather airships by carvorite, a special mineral with anti-gravity properties thanks a special energetic stimulation. Space race hasn't started yet. There is technology but not enough material resources. There are rumors of visitors from outer sphere, and their interestelar travel technology has caused planar rifts what allows teletransportation portal to unexplored regions of the sphere. Some zones have got ruins of a high-advanced civilization.

Almost all governments are dictatorships or fake democracies (the candidates are only figureheads obeyings instructions from cryptocracies or secret lobbies). Some countries are controlled by secret lodges of creatures as vampires or faes. There are also some monarchies, but these kings are puppets of giants, dragons or some other paranormal faction (let's imagine the noble houses of "Game of Dragons" with secret superpowers).

After the second titanomachy the gods have disappeared (and also most of dragons and giants), and now lord feys have established a new "regalism" ( = clergy controlled by lay powers). The high spheres of these new religions (too close to the leader cult) are ruled by a special type of faes, the lictors, whose symbol is a whip by grouped thin living tentacles (this symbolizes together being stronger than individually). Only the "fraterchies", religious groups ruled by lord faes are allowed by the current governments. There is a secret rebellion against the "fraterchies", some of them are cults of "titankin", people who say they have the "blood" of primal titans or giants. (controlled speech?).

I am trying to add more ideas, and my source of inspiration for my brainstorm are Buck Roger, Flash Gordon, Diego Valor (vintage sci-fi strip), James Bond, pulp fiction from jazz age, golden age or superhero comics, some 80's action movies (Rambo, Missing in Action, Schwarzenegger's Commando..), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Legenderry comics, supernatural romances, gothic-punk horror, urban fantasy (Charmed, Buffy vampire slayer), Men In Black, Dark*Matter (d20 Modern setting), Ravenloft, White Wolf's World of Darkness, Kult: lost divinity (Warhammer 40.000 next to this is P.A.W patrol).

A new class would be the nagual, a mixture of shifter and totem medium.


"Cobra" was a 1986 action movie with Sylvester Stallone as Marion Cobretti, the main character, and Brigitte Nielsen as Ingrid Knudsen, the female main character. In a scene the main antagonist, the night slasher, leader of the cult of the new dawn was chasing the girl, and this, without weapons, only could to hide and run away as in a survival horror videogame. Later in the end of the movie, Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, with enough weapons and ammo, would face all the cult and the final boss. Then you can guess it was like a shooter arcade.

How to explain with other example. In "Fortnite: Save the World" the heroes have to face the husks, hostile zombie-like creatures from unknown origin. If you are a good player, you save enough ammo and weapons... because if you don't do it.... the game become too harder.

Other videogame "Evil Within" is a survival horror in the beginning, trying to save ammo for the encounters against the monsters. Later it is more like a shooter. Enough ammo is the key for the survivance.

In the first movie "Alien, the eighth passenger" only one xenomorph was enough to kill almost Nostromo's crew but our "final girl", but in the second movie dozens, maybe hundreds of them, were killed with sentinel tower guns from other room.

A monster like a dinosaur in a fantasy game may be a true nightmare for PCs but in sci-fi they can be killed with only a shot by a remote-control flying drone.

How should be the XPs reward when high-tech allow a easier or harder fight? What if you can drive a heavy truck to run over a horde of zombies. A goblin with an axe and a shield is cannon fodder but that monster with the same stats but with a sniper rifle from the top of a tree, or a window in a building can be too dangerous for PCs without ranged attacks.

Sometimes the good guys are people from a primitive civilization, for example ewoks from "the return of the jedi" or na'vi from James Cameron's Avatar. They aren't ready to fight enemies with high-tech technology, or steampunk constructs.